Hansen Medical has made an equity investment in Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics (ACT), and secured exclusive rights to ACT intellectual property for certain robotic applications.

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) should remain the standard of care for patients with complex coronary artery disease (CAD), according to results from the SYNTAX study, which are published in the March 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Despite an increase in net losses for the fourth quarter of 2008, Spectranetics showed increased profits for the 2008 fiscal year, which ended Dec. 31.

Medtronic today acquired Ventor Technologies, a developer of transcatheter heart valve technologies for the treatment of aortic valve disease, for a payment of $325 million. The company also signed a definitive agreement today to acquire CoreValve for $700 million, plus additional payments contingent upon the achievement of agreed milestones.

A Phase 1FDA-approved clinical trial using adult cardiac stem cells to treat heart disease will be conducted by a team of University of Louisville doctors at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky.

Many patients who receive drugs plus stents as delayed treatment for a heart attack have equivalent outcomes to using drugs alone; also the drug option is cheaper and there is no meaningful long-term difference in quality of life between the two options, according to results from the Occluded Artery Trial (OAT), which appeared in the Feb. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Cardiovascular Systems, a developer ofinterventional treatment systems for vascular disease, saw triple-digit growth in revenues for the firm's fiscal 2009 second quarter, which ended Dec. 31.

Sorin Group has acquired the Clearglide endoscopic vessel (EVH) harvesting product line of the Montvale, N.J.-based Datascope, which allow for less-invasive harvesting of vessels for use in coronary artery bypass grafting.